


space vacuums in space

by catpoop



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Department Store, Alternate Universe - Space, Feral Behavior, Galra Keith (Voltron), Kitty!Keef, M/M, Movie Night, Purple keef, mild crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-20 00:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12420951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catpoop/pseuds/catpoop
Summary: Hunk powers up a vacuum. Cue screaming.See, it's nothisfault, Shiro explains. It's Hunk's, for taking in the strangest untrained creatures, even if they have a habit of sleeping in the furniture displays and are entirely too purple.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chiapslock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiapslock/gifts).



> hey chibi here's your feral kitty!Keef fic revamped and hopefully more acceptable
> 
> take this as sheathe your claws 2.0, with less of the sheith and some of the claws
> 
> yet again, very very inspired by this gorgeous piece of [art](https://twitter.com/A_side_only/status/865835009076113408). please do check it out if you haven't already

Altea Homewares is a nice place, Shiro has to admit, even if they’re nowhere near the fallen planet of Altea and the health insurance isn’t always reliable. The dust-swept plains of 15 Cygni Aa get to be a soothing sight after a while, despite his co-worker Hunk’s constant complaints.

( _“Wish we could be manning an Earth store and not this junkyard…”_

_“You know that Earth looks like here, right?”_

_“Okay, then past Earth. Past Earth’s cool, yeah?”_ )

It’s not a junkyard, not really. The homewares store is a shiny furbished place, all pale floors and matching shelves and furniture displays artistically arranged. In fact, if Shiro weren’t just a lowly employee, he might even feel proud of the establishment and of how many customers they receive on a rotational basis.

But proud or not, the full-time hours get a little boring. So boring, in fact, that Shiro allows himself a tiny, excited grin when he hears Hunk shriek in the _cfthelis_ section.

“Oh god, oh god – Shiro!”

Shiro rushes quickly to his side. “What happened?”

Hunk stands there trembling, vacuum in hand. “Oh god, it was horrible. Like a big, purple blur – it might’ve been a spider! You know what spiders are, right?”

“N – not really.” Shiro shakes his head.

“They’re historic Earth creatures, and I heard that they’re the most _terrifying_ thing you can see!”

“What would an Earth creature be doing here? It’s probably another one of those dust mites – which is why you should be vacuuming.”

Hunk fervently shakes his head. “No! It jumped out at me from under the bed when I was vacuuming there! Nearly scalped me before it disappeared into the rafters.” He gestures upwards, too traumatised to actually look up.

Shiro tilts his head back. As always, the rafters are shrouded in shadow, the ceiling too high to see and the rumoured nests of strange creatures crowding the veneered planks. They’ve had to deal with infestations once or twice, but only when the pests started chewing up the down duvets and defecating in the occasional drawer.

“I’m sure it was nothing, Hunk.” Shiro pats his shoulder with an easy smile, and turns back to his last group of customers. They titter as he apologises for Hunk’s behaviour.

The rest of the day passes smoothly, with the exception of the worried looks Hunk sends him every now and then. He rushes up to Shiro the moment the doors to the store close.

“Shiro! I swear to god, there’s something up there, hissing at me!”

“Hissing? Could be an Andalusian python.”

“But _purple_?” Hunk sounds on the verge of nervous tears.

“Um … we can take a look in the databases tonight, and tackle whatever-it-is tomorrow morning. Sounds like a plan?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hunk doesn’t look the slightest bit comforted, instead muttering about ‘spy-ders’ the entire way to the employee flats. “Spiders won’t show up in the database, right?”

“They might.”

\-----

As it turns out, their intruder is neither a python, nor a spider. At least, Shiro assumes it’s not a spider. See, the events went like this:

He takes vacuum duty the next morning, as it’s his job to do so, _and_ Hunk is feeling extra jittery around the cleaning machine. It turns out his fears were right, because the moment Shiro powers up the vacuum with a _whoosh!_ , the nearest cupboard door slams open and a fluffy, purple blur knocks the vacuum out of his hands and claws up both his arms. Even the prosthetic one.

It is entirely out of luck that he gets a good grip around the spitting ball of anger, pins his limbs down to the floor (four, he quickly counts), and yells for Hunk to come rescue him.

“I’m coming, buddy!”

Hunk stares down at the vaguely humanoid thing wriggling on the pristine floor. They’ll have to vacuum that again, he thinks idly. Wait no, scratch that, vaguely _human_ , if they ignore the purplish skin, the wriggling black tail, and the large fluffy ears to either side of its head. Said head suddenly spins a 180 to growl at him and Hunk takes a careful step backwards.

“You got it, Shiro?”

Shiro sounds out of breath. “Yeah – can you grab me one of those weighted blankets? You know, the one with the buckles?”

Hunk nods and scrambles off. He and Shiro have always remarked that the blankets were strangely straitjacket-like in nature (buckles? On a blanket?), so it’s almost ironic what they’re using one for now.

By the time he returns with heavy blanket in hand (torn from a display), Shiro is still kneeling beside the vacuum, struggling purple monster pinned beneath him.

“Here!”

“Perfect, thanks.”

Struggling Purple Monster doesn’t even see it coming as Shiro throws the blanket over him, flips him around, and pulls the straps tight.

“There you go. No biggie.” Shiro glances down at his halfway-shredded uniform. “I might need a change of clothes, though.”

Management isn’t sure what to do with their purple baggage or its weighted prison, but soon leaves them alone when Shiro and Hunk promise to pay for the cost of the blanket and a new shirt.

“Looks kinda like a kitty, don’t you think?” Hunk remarks as they place the captive animal in the storeroom. It pulls a sharp, toothy face at him.

“A cat, you mean?”

“Yeah. My great-great gramma brought a bunch with her to the Mars colony. There’s probably still a few kitties floating around somewhere.”

“That’s cute,” Shiro muses, “But did any of them ever look purple and humanoid?”

Hunk hums in thought.

\-----

By shift-end, they discover the cat- _thing_ hasn’t yet wiggled out of the blanket. In fact, it’s barely moved, tucked against the far wall and completely silent.

“Is it – dead?” Hunk nudges the reinforced fabric with a wary foot. The creature lets out a quiet rumble. “Or not.”

It’s easier to see the fine features of the animal when it’s still, the twin shuttered eyelids and sloped nose eerily human in shape. Hunk kneels down beside it and, against better judgement, extends a finger to try and judge its breathing. If the creature even exhales from the nose-shaped thing on its head.

“Hunk –” Shiro sounds scared, for once, and that’s when he accidentally touches the pad of his finger to the slight dimple above the animal’s lip.

“ _Shit!_ ”

Hunk watches with widening eyes as the dangerous maw of the beast eases open and a small, pointed pink tongue reaches out to lick at his finger. “Oh my – _god_.”

And another lick, the rough flesh surprisingly dry on his skin. Like sandpaper, but alive. “Oh my god,” Hunk repeats, “Do you see that? It’s so cute!”

“Hunk! That’s a wild animal!”

“Cats were once wild animals,” Hunk reasons, and it doesn’t take long after that (only an hour-long explanation on the involvement of cats in developing Earthen society) for Shiro to wearily agree. 

“Just … keep it in the living room. And lock the bedroom doors at night – I don’t want it murdering the both of us overnight.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, man.”

And with that, they gain a third roommate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> changed the tag to sheith lol

They name him ‘Keith’, because the assortment of scored lines on his collar vaguely resemble the appropriate letters.

“ _Who’s a good Keithy kitty?_ ”

Shiro watches in bewilderment as Hunk coos at the growling, purple creature perched atop their bookcase. His friend tosses a length of string up at a clawed hand, to no reaction. Keith had leapt up there the moment they unbuckled the weighted blanket and has yet to move an inch, hissing and bristling in mistrust for the entire evening. Still, Hunk doesn’t give up.

“Good kitty –”

Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose. “ _Hunk_ , should we just get rid of it – I mean, _him_ , already? Do you even know what he is?”

Hunk shrugs without turning around. “Hmm, no. Look it up for me, Shiro?”

“Fine.”

By the time Shiro has pulled up several dozen articles on all variety of purple-skinned creatures, Hunk has somehow wrapped the (squirming) animal in the blanket again and manoeuvred it half into his lap. Shiro stares at the gloved hand with which he’s attempting to stroke the still-spitting creature.

“Hunk – ?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it under control. He’ll be purring like an actual cat in no time.”

“Can he even – purr?”

Hunk shrugs. 

Well, Shiro notes, if Keith _can_ actually purr, then it’s likeliest he’s a member of the Galra species, if a little under-furred and shorter than the average height. And – Shiro’s eyes browse over the pages of text and accompanying diagrams in dismay – the Galra are apparently a sapient species. Oops.

Shiro raises his head. “Um, Hunk?”

Hunk shushes him furiously. “Shh – shh, do you hear that? He’s _purring_!”

Keith is, in fact, lying prone on Hunk’s left thigh, eyes closed and face lax as fingers run through the thick fur behind his ears. Shiro can’t hear a thing, but he can imagine. He swallows nervously.

“Hunk? The only thing that’s purple and purrs is a Galran…”

“Oh!” Hunk beams. “That sounds cute. What kind of creature are they? A _kitty_?”

“Not – exactly. They’re a kind of … sapient biped. Predator species.” Shiro watches, silent, as Hunk turns ever-so-slowly to stare at him, eyes wide and fingers frozen mid-scratch.

“Did you say … _sapient_?” He whispers, turning back to regard their new roommate in horror. “Like, big-enough brain, intelligent thought, probably-understands-what-we’re-saying- _right-now_?” He trails off into a whine.

“Um. Yes.”

“Oh fuck!” With how violently Hunk leaps away from Keith, it’s no surprise their guest quickly reawakens, shaking out his mop of dark fur and glaring at the both of them in hostility.

“I mean, I’m very sorry, sir. Or madam.” Hunk folds into a mangled curtsey. “This was a massive misunderstanding, ha-ha! You know we meant you no harm, and if we just discuss we can … figure something out.” 

Keith continues to hiss from a distance.

“Do you – do you know what he’s saying?” Hunk whispers. “Grab a translator, quick!”

Hurriedly, Shiro taps to a translating application and holds out the mouthpiece. “Here, record his speech.”

Keith sniffs curiously at the small rectangular piece of plastic before resuming hissing. “Perfect, sir.” Hunk reassures their guest. “Shiro, what’s it say?”

“Um.” Shiro blinks, and blinks again. “Er – maybe the program’s not working…” The suggestion sounds fake to his own ears, but when the displayed text reads as nothing but a garbled, hissing mess…

“Hunk, can you take a look at this for me?”

Hunk dutifully takes the tablet from him. “Sure. That – that’s strange.” He taps the screen a few times, squints, and shoots Keith (who is sat curled up in the corner of the room, sucking on a fingernail) another look. “Yeah – I dunno what’s wrong … is he not sapient after all?”

“Maybe not. But if he’s not Galran then what is he?”

They have no answer.

\-----

Now that their new purple pet has turned out to potentially be the latest diplomat from a faraway alien colony, Hunk and Shiro get a little nervous. A little _too_ careful, if you may.

As it turns out, Keith seems perfectly content to gobble down whatever food and drink they offer (“Poor thing seems to have been dehydrated,” Hunk remarked), loitering on the comfortable cushions of their couch once he knows physical affection is within reach.

Which is why, in their attempt to placate that strange maybe-Galra now in their life, they find their evenings entirely occupied by head-scratches, pets, and crinkly blue packets of fish-scented treats. Keith looks far too smug for his supposed non-sentience.

… 

They give up after the fifth pack of treats, when it becomes clear that Keith is definitely not the diplomat they imagined him to be.

“Hunk , I – I don’t think he’s here to represent the Galra.”

Hunk shrugs in surrender.

In front of them, Keith snoozes, languid and sated.

But try as they might to pretend he’s just an overlarge housecat (at least, based on the data Hunk is quick to provide), Shiro can’t help but notice an uncanny sense of _intelligence_. Like the fluffy satellite-dish ears that are _always_ swivelled towards them when someone is talking. 

Shiro shoots him a nervous look.

His paranoia only gets worse in the coming days, of Keith being an alien spy sent by the higher-ups to monitor their loyalty to the company. See: Exhibit 1.

\-----

It’s movie night every fifth rotation, because that’s when Lance and Pidge are free to stop by, usually leaving with an extra chair or throw pillow from the homewares store. Which explains why Lance is cradling a particularly vivid specimen of cushion (blue and yellow check) when Keith leaps down from the heavens like an avenging god, screeching and digging all ten fore-claws into the painfully-bright fabric.

Lance’s screech sounds like the howl of a dying man.

“Holy – Holy shit! Hunk! Pidge! Shiro! Protect me, _help_ , I’m getting murdered to bits I’m –”

“Chill, it’s just your cushion,” Pidge calmly points out. “And hey, Shiro, who’s the new friend?”

“Oh – haha … he’s just an alien we found in the store. We decided to keep him around because Hunk has a thing for Earth cats.”

“Oh yeah, he does kinda –” Pidge mutters, as Hunk yelps in disagreement. “So he’s just a pet you guys keep around? Should teach him not to scratch up visitors.” She casually rolls her eyes in the direction of Lance’s emotional breakdown over the tatters of his new purchase.

“He’s a, how do you put it, a work in progress.” Shiro attempts.

Hunk looks affronted. “You’re not a _work-in-progress,_ no you’re not~” And with the cooed promise of more head-scratches, Keith immediately settles into his lap, sparing a glare for Lance before closing his eyes.

“… or he’s _not_ a work-in-progress,” Shiro finishes lamely.

“What _I_ want to know,” Lance blurts, “is why we aren’t making any _progress_ on the fifth-rote movie night?”

And with that, they start up the film – something marked as horror but apparently ‘80% comedy, 20% bad jokes’, according to Pidge. Regardless, Hunk and Lance shiver in frightened unison as scrolling text appears onscreen.

Shiro’s attention should’ve been directed towards the movie, but instead, he finds himself staring at the content alien beside him. A sentient twinkle of purple meets his own eyes.

_Suspicious._

Made ever more suspicious when, on no less than five separate occasions (Shiro keeps a tally on his fingers), Keith bares his teeth in a caricature of a smile and chuffs like an asthmatic while the rest of them laugh at something onscreen.

“Hey, Hunk – Hunk!” Both of Keith’s ears turn to point directly at him, unlike Hunk’s semi-focused nod. “Is he _laughing_?”

“Hmm, what? Maybe, I dunno.” And the conversation comes to an end, though Keith’s intelligent gaze doesn’t waver from his direction for a good several minutes. Shiro gives him a _look_.

Keith grins at him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry to everyone who thought keith was just pretending to be feral lmao  
> ... that can be a fic for another time, maybe ...
> 
> also, thank you for all the comments you guys r Da Best

The situation only gets stranger over the next couple of days. Hunk seems content to pretend that nothing is amiss in their mediocre furniture-selling lives, but Shiro remains wary. 

Such as when the two of them enter the lounge after a rotation’s work to find Keith clutching a tablet in both clawed hands, mouth ajar and tail bristling in surprise.

“Oh, hey, Keith.” Hunk cooes. “What’cha got there?”

The tablet (a spare one) is off, thankfully, but that doesn’t stop Hunk from reaching over and teaching him how to turn on the piece of equipment. 

“You’ve got prehensile fingers, right? Well, that’s useful, see, as you can …”

Keith beams. 

They’d expected him to briefly gaze at the colourful buttons on-screen, maybe, or to take it as a piece of useless metal and dump it in disinterest. Not to hold onto it for the rest of the night, or to, bizarrely enough, have open _several hundred pictures_ of Galra by the following morning. Shiro stares at him accusingly.

“I knew it! I knew you’re intelligent – so stop pretending otherwise! I don’t like what you’re doing, and why have you been here for a dozen rotations?”

Hunk creeps up behind him. “Hey, Shiro, he’s just learning how to use the tablet. It’s no big –”

They freeze as Keith makes the quietest sound. “ _Shiro._ ”

“Wait – what?”

“Shi – ro,” Keith repeats, voice sharp on the syllables as he stares between the two of them.

“Yeah … that’s me?”

“Shi-ro shi – Ro-shi –ro,” he mutters again, before turning back to the tablet and prodding at a picture of an anonymous Galra.

“Hunk…” Shiro hisses, but it’s hard to keep their conversation private when Hunk lets out an excited squeal.

“Omigod, is our kitty learning to talk?”

Shiro gestures at the pictures onscreen. “See, I _told_ you he’s Galra. Knows it, too.”

“Shiro … what do we do?”

“… I don’t know.”

Keith doesn’t miraculously gain the ability of speech in the next few days, but he does grow ever more attached to the tablet, the screen always frozen on Galra-related pictures. 

“How do you think he’s finding them?” Hunk whispers one day, but Shiro has no answer.

They leave him alone for enough hours every rotation, so there’s no dismissing the fact he could be a Galra spy. And with that cheerful thought in mind, Shiro steals the tablet the first chance he gets, carefully easing it from between Keith’s curled arms and sitting down besides his snoozing form. He fumbles for the protruding power switch and watches as the screen lights up to show Keith’s most recent activities.

Multiple windows of images, an incoherent mess in the search box, and a lengthy _lengthy_ string of past searches. Shiro looks closer, curiosity piqued.

_Galra_  
_Gelra_  
_gilla_  
_gggera_  
_Gera_  
_Gggggggg A_  
_Aa_  
_Gal_  
… 

And several hundred more similar search results trailing down the page after that, timestamps packed together. Shiro taps on one at random, eyes widening when he spots a crucial detail: ‘Search: voice-to-text.’

So that’s how he’s done it. But based on the garbled string of words previously searched, Keith’s vocabulary is sorely limited, unless ‘fffrxxggggggal’ and ‘phhhhhhjys’ are both words. Shiro spares him another look, sighs at the troubled look marring his purple face, and slides the tablet back into position. 

Keith smiles in his sleep.

\-----

“Hunk, this might sound strange, but –”

“So you’re telling me he _can_ talk, but he just doesn’t know how?” Hunk asks once Shiro finishes his explanation.

“I – guess? That seems to be the likeliest conclusion.”

“So whadda we do now?” Hunk groans. “Teach him Galra-nese? Universal? Pretend we’re not harbouring a sentient cat and continue to feed him treats?”

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “You’re not –”

“Not _that_ many treats,” Hunk admits. “Just a few. Occasionally.”

No wonder Keith’s gotten to be so docile and pudgy – or at least, pudgier than when he crash-landed into their lives. Shiro thinks of sunken cheeks and protruding shoulder blades.

“Just don’t … go overboard with those. You know rent’s due soon, and those things are costly.”

“I know, I know.”

“Anyway,” Shiro continues from where they’d left off, “I think Universal is our best bet. Unless he _wants_ to learn the Galra language, though I doubt there are many data packs out there.”

From what brief research he’s done, the Galran population is negligible, barely a fraction of the human population and absent from any of the sectors he’s visited. So for Keith to be here, representing the elusive Galra race, is … unusual, to say the least.

A little reluctantly, Shiro downloads a whole slew of Universal language lessons to Keith’s tablet (it’s his now, since never puts it down) one day, humming as the installation slowly loads. Keith fidgets beside him.

He coughs abruptly, and the Galran turns to stare at him. 

“So, Keith, we thought it would be useful for you to learn a few phrases in Universal, so you can explain why you’re here, or tell us how you’re feeling, or anything else you want to say. That sound like a plan?”

Keith bares a toothy grin.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Shiro opens the first lesson, a brightly coloured module on the thirty two letters of the Universal alphabet. The bold curves of the first letter grow to take up the entire screen.

“See here, Keith,” Shiro taps on the fibreglass, “This button on the left tells you the pronunciation –” He presses it, and a robotic voice reads: ‘ah-Lef’, “while the button on the right lets you move on.”

Shiro thumbs at the first button again, shaping his lips around the syllables as he gives Keith an expectant look.

It only takes five more tries before Keith quietly repeats the letter after him, and Shiro beams. “Okay, perfect! Now we can progress…”

On the next screen, there’s a cartoonish picture of the common yellow _arrut_ , a savoury tuber that Keith seems to recognise, if his upright ears are any indication.

“Now, repeat after me – _arrut_. ‘Ah –” 

And in that way, Shiro guides him through a third of the alphabet, repeating each letter and respective object several dozen times until Keith seems comfortably confident in the knowledge that he can identify the chairs in their living room, the wrinkled tuber (not so yellow anymore) in their fridge, and the furry length of his own tail.

According to the information Shiro’s found, Keith is definitely larger than the average Galran infant and child – so it makes no sense that he’s never learnt to pick up modern language. Hunk shrugs.

“Well, good on him for taking the step to educate himself. Guess he can’t be a housecat forever.” He sounds a little wistful.

And that’s how they find themselves returning after each rotational work day to an increasingly fluent Keith, his vocabulary doubling then tripling with each lesson he devours.

“Hey Keith, how’re you doing?”

“ _Higexcal_ ,” Keith chirps in response.

“That’s good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dunno where this fic is taking me


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the love so far <3
> 
> ... a shorter chapter, this time, because it's a little disheartening putting a lot of work into a fic (not this one lol) and seeing it flop :/ guess i gotta wait for that motivation to return from the war

Lance and Pidge notice the change almost immediately during their next movie night. 

“Wa-Wait, is he–?” Keith looks up from his tablet and wrinkles his nose at the sight of Lance. 

“Yeah, he is.” Hunk replies, and the dumbstruck look on Lance’s face grows disturbingly fixed. Pidge wanders over to take a closer look. 

“Hey, that’s Universal. What are you guys doing teaching your housecat how to read?”

“Yoo-nee-vers’l,” Keith mumbles. 

“It was Shiro’s idea,” Hunk blurts, and Shiro chuckles awkwardly as all eyes in the room turn to him.

“We, uh, probably should’ve mentioned this before, but we’re pretty sure he’s a member of a sentient species. The – Galra?”

“Oh, hey!” Pidge unexpectedly exclaims. “I’ve heard of them.” 

“And I’m not too sure why he never learnt how to read and speak, but he seems interested now.”

“…and I swear I know someone who…” Pidge trails off, muttering to herself.

“So he’s not _really_ a cat?” Lance asks.

“Not really.”

“Hm.” And with that, the discussion comes to an end, the subject turning to which movie to view, the monotony of working in a homewares store, and Lance and Pidge’s own adventures in rehabilitating a small, dried-up moon some ten light years away. Shiro can’t help but notice the way in which Keith’s ears flicker whenever he recognises a word in their conversation.

…It’s endearing watching his progress, even if he doesn’t curl up in either of their laps anymore, preferring to sit intelligently upright to obviously mimic his human companions.

Shiro knows Keith would rather eat through lesson after lesson in rapid succession, but by the time they’re an hour into the movie, he’s clearly distracted by the action onscreen, tablet abandoned in favour of staring at the holo-display in interest.

“It’s a fantasy retelling of Earth’s first mission out of the solar system,” Shiro says, though that doesn’t really explain why Hunk and Lance are sobbing into each others’ arms or why the two characters onscreen are entangled in a passionate argument.

“Firssssst,” Keith hisses.

“Yeah. See, it goes like this–” Shiro tries to elaborate, if a little too loudly, judging by Pidge and Lance’s sudden aggressive shushing. As if their popcorn-crunching wasn’t just as loud.

“Okay, _okay_.”

But even if Keith is lost on the finer details of the plot, he’s intelligent enough to laugh at the right times, flinch when the 3-D spaceship zooms towards them, and hide in the crook of Shiro’s elbow when the music turns dark and ominous.

It seems almost natural for them to adopt him into their circle of post-movie madness.

“What about that Richardson scene?” Lance cheers, “Where he nearly dies but absolutely _doesn’t_ , because he’s too hot to die!”

Keith huffs in what could be agreement.

“Haha, Keith agrees with me! Pidge, you better _up your game_.”

Pidge sounds weary. “I never disagree with you, Lance.”

“Yeah? Then what did you think about –”

As the situation escalates, Shiro briefly offers Keith an apologetic glance before throwing himself headfirst into the mess of a discussion. In fact, Hunk’s placating voice is the only thing holding everyone together. 

“Lance, I swear to god, I can and will fight you on this.”

“Fight? You’re a gremlin – you can’t hurt me.”

“ _Guys – it’s getting kind of late…_ ”

And so it is. Almost on cue, Keith yawns widely, baring several dozen sharp teeth. Lance squeaks.

“Guess we’ll have to postpone this throw-down for later,” Pidge smirks. “Oh, and Shiro, I just remembered what I was going to say about the Galra.”

“Hm?” Shiro turns to look at her. 

“Yeah. I gotta check with Matt, but I swear I know someone who knows someone who–” She breaks off, jabbing a finger at Shiro. “Have you heard of the Blade of Marmora?”

“N-No?”

At this point, everyone else in the room is curiously listening to their mainly one-sided conversation. Keith’s ears flicker back and forth, eyes round with interest.

“They’re a Galra organisation, I think. Very rare in these parts.”

“Oh.” For a moment, Shiro struggles to make the connection between Pidge’s words and what implications that holds for Keith, until he realises–

_Oh. A working vocabulary. Actual, reliable knowledge on the Galra themselves. A home, perhaps. A better future._

Slowly, Shiro dips his head.

“Cool. I’ll send you the deets when I get more info.” And with that, Pidge finger-guns her way out of the room, dragging Lance behind her and leaving the three of them to deal with the post-movie wreckage scattered across the floor.

Keith pops a stray piece of popcorn in his mouth.

“Time for clean-up, I guess.” Hunk shrugs. “But hey, that stuff Pidge said just then about the Galra is interesting. What d’you think, Keith? Meeting more Galra?”

“Gall-ra,” Keith smiles, and Shiro is swiftly reminded of his almost-obsessive search history. It’ll be good for him, once Pidge gets back to them on this mysterious organisation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u leave a comment i'll give u my firstborn child or maybe a spare kidney  
> THAT IS, all comments r very very very appreciated

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: swummeng-geys (come fill my inbox with hatemail and rotten tomatoes it's lonely down here)  
> twitter: eh no one cares about my twitter. who r u fooling, Self


End file.
